Are You Making These Common Finance Mistakes?

It happens every month without fail. When payday rolls around on the third Friday of the month, your bank account looks healthy – filled with money to spare, even. With a few easy taps on your banking app, you’ve sent off your rent, covered your electric bill, and paid off a little of your credit card debt. You decide it will be alright if you splurge a little on dinner, a movie, a maybe even a quick weekend trip to the local shopping center. A week or so later, you absentmindedly swipe open your banking app – and stare in disbelief. Your bank balance is practically anemic. Where did all of your money go?

Spending Impulsively

Your morning Starbucks latte could be costing you. Crunch the numbers: a venti latte costs roughly $4 a pop. If you multiply that times the five days in a work week, you find yourself with a coffee bill of $20 a week, or a full $80 a month. In other words, the money you spend on coffee alone could have covered your entire grocery bill for a month. Small expenses add up – so avoid making impulse purchases. If you think you might be splurging just a little too often, check! At the end of the month, compile all of your card charges and assess how much you spent on necessary items or services (i.e., rent, food, gas) versus how much you spent on unnecessary treats or luxuries. You might just find yourself reconsidering your coffee budget afterwards.

Paying Too Many Subscriptions

Do you really need Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and HBO Go? Probably not. Signing onto a service may seem simple and cheap when you’re in the free trial period, but those monthly fees accumulate quickly. Do an inventory of the subscriptions you have and decide which ones you can afford to cut ties with.

Living on Credit

Having a credit card doesn’t give you access to free money! Credit card companies make their enormous profits off of people who make minimum payments and allow interest to accrue. Just think – by leaving the expense of a single small item on your balance, you could end up paying out twice the original price in interest and fees. Believing in the “free money” myth could cost you money; living on credit could leave you bankrupt.

Overspending on Housing

You may want the in-building gym or slickly designed kitchen – but can you afford it? According to a report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, over one-third of all American households spend 30% or more of their take-home pay on housing expenses. Most financial advisors set the expense ceiling for rent at 30% of a person’s take-home pay; however, even this might be too high for someone struggling to pay off hefty student loans or provide for a family. Don’t let a nice apartment or charming home lure you deeper into debt. If you do, you might find yourself needing to sacrifice your personal life and stay home far more than you ever wanted to.

“Keeping Up” With Others

If all of your friends leapt into crippling debt, would you follow? The answer might not be as easy as you think. Sometimes, it can be difficult to say no to a weekend trip or fancy dinner – even if you know that the expense would eat into your budget for the month. Make a habit of thinking your budget first, and fun second – or risk losing out on a significant chunk of potential savings.